


Perennials

by ZoeBug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - Spirits, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Folklore, Gen, JeanMarco Gift Exchange, Legends, Seasonal Spirits and Guardians, Supernatural Elements, Winter Spirit!Jean, Winter Spirits, human!Marco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: Winter storms in this part of the mountains, the stories all said, were different.Something lived within the biting swirls of snow and howling winds. Whenever the blinding grey-white of the sky brought down a blizzard on the little town, the stories whispered, something descended from the mountain with it to visit the village.Marco never had any reason to believe the stories were true. They were simply folktales--fun ways to entertain children during the long dark of winter evenings.This is what Marco believes of them until a blizzard comes to the village the winter that he turns twenty.
Relationships: Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: JeanMarco Gift Exchange 2019





	Perennials

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caravean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caravean/gifts).

> Happy Holidays, chellyla! I hope you enjoy your JM Gift Exchange gift and that this hits that mark of a fae!Marco you like. May your winter be full of mysterious gifts C:

_Perennial_ \- a variety of flower that continues to regrow year after year without being replanted

* * *

The people in his village have always told stories about the blizzards. 

When Marco was small, he would hear them gathered around the hearth with his cousins. The wild gesticulations of his grandfather’s arms would cast wide and monstrous shadows onto the walls as he would recount the tales in the flickering firelight. Marco would hear them told by his teachers on the days when the year’s first snows would begin to drift softly beyond the schoolhouse windows.

There were a handful of different tales around blizzards. There were varying details, handfuls of lessons, featuring different nameless people from the days of old. But all the tales centered on the same truth.

Winter storms in this part of the mountains, the stories all said, were different.

Something lived within the biting swirls of snow and howling winds. Whenever the blinding grey-white of the sky brought down a blizzard on the little town, the stories whispered, something descended from the mountain with it to visit the village.

Marco never had any reason to believe the stories were true.

They were simply folktales--fun ways to entertain children during the long dark of winter evenings, telling tales of things that came in the storms and left tokens of affection upon those they took a liking to.

This is what Marco believes of them until a blizzard comes to the village the winter that he turns twenty.

That first night that the blizzard blows in from the mountain tops, Marco tosses and turns from fitful dreams. In the early morning hours he is woken by the whistle of the wind forcing its way through a crack in his bedroom window pane only to find loose pine needles have been scattered around his sleeping body. They fan out from his form like the golden shine that surrounds paintings of saints in the church further down the mountain.

Marco sits up, running his hands through the loose needles, crushing a few beneath his shifting weight. In a moment he is surrounded by the sharp smell of fresh, cold pine.

There’s a chill that runs down his spine at the recognizable picture his bed makes this morning. The familiarity comes from a lifetime of tales--tales about winter storms and circles of pine needles and the affection of things that sometimes visit from the mountain’s peaks.

The sudden rattling of his latched window in the wind makes him jump, flinging the blanket from his legs. The needles shower from his bed. 

Winter morning has left the wooden boards of the floor freezing beneath Marco’s bare feet and hands, but he sweeps the needles off his bed and gathers the ones on floor with chilly, shaking hands.

Marco doesn’t tell anyone about it as the day continues, the blizzard raging outside. It piles snow onto the rooftops and drags its icy claws across the exposed cheeks of any who dare to venture from building to building that day.

That night before Marco climbs into bed, he hangs a handful of dried herbs from his bedroom window. His mother used to hang bundles of dried things from his window when he would get nightmares as a child, fastening them to the latches before kissing him on the forehead. So many things from his childhood seem to be returning this winter. 

Marco doesn’t really believe the herbs provide any meaningful protection. But then again, he also didn’t believe the stories about the blizzards that come to the village.

He leaves a candle burning on the table when he does finally slide under the covers to fall asleep, hoping the light will keep away anything the herbs won’t.

The next morning Marco again wakes surrounded by pine needles. Jolting upright in alarm, his bangs hang strangely heavy against his forehead. Through slightly crossed eyes, Marco lifts his hand to feel only to realize that while he’d slept, somehow the dried herbs from his window have been twisted delicately into his hair.

The blizzard rages for another day and night. And another morning finds him surrounded by pine needles. Marco didn’t hang anymore herbs by his window, but morning comes to find whole sprigs of pine tucked into the creases and folds of his blankets. It was done with great care, he realizes, running his fingers over the fabric of his winter quilt--done strategically so as to protect any bare skin the spiny greenery

Whatever it is it wants, whatever has been coming to visit in the cold darkness, at the very least it doesn’t seem to want to hurt him.

Marco still doesn’t not tell anyone. But before bed, he makes sure to blow out his candle.

The next day, the blizzard wanes during daylight but ressurges as darkness comes and Marco falls asleep to the sound of the wind howling down the mountain. 

His visitor begins leaving Marco little gifts during the night. More sprigs of pine twined into his blankets. A small pile of holly berries spilling out from beneath his pillow. Two slightly crushed blossoms of witch hazel tucked into the sleep-loose curve of his palm.

The people in the village start talking. Marco hears them murmuring about how strangely uneventful the winter season has been. Only one person has fallen ill the entire winter so far, Marco’s mother remarks as she dumps chopped root vegetables to a pot of stew. No one’s roof has caved in under the weight of snow, Marco’s neighbor observes as he shovels the snow from his front stoop. No drought animals have slipped on ice, people tell him, no one’s dogs have run into a single wolf while out hunting. Little things here and there, they’ll state, add up to it being an unusually fortunate winter. Aside from the biting chill of the wind, that is.

Marco pulls his scarf higher up over his nose, smiling, and continues on his way past the gossiping voices of his neighbors, boots shuffling in the deep snow.

The nightly visits by whatever comes down from the mountain with the storms continue. Some nights Marco stays awake to try and meet it, only to find himself waking to dawn light bleeding through the window, somehow having fallen asleep upright in his chair. 

One of these mornings, across the bright daylight of the window, Marco finds a delicate web of ice forming a spindly picture. A young man smiling as he kneels atop a mountain’s peak, face dotted with crystalline freckles, a crown of pine boughs resting atop his head. Squinting, he thinks can make out the shape of a hand cupping one side of his face but it’s hard to tell for sure.

As winter draws closer to its end, tiny crocuses begin to burst up through the snow, dotting the white around Marco’s house with the first colors of approaching spring. Marco walks in a circle around his house, connecting the staggered spacing of the purple blossoms--some bent with the weight of snow on their petals--only to find they make an almost perfect ring.

Eventually the spring thaw comes, and with it, the winds gentle and cease, warming with the season. Snow melts and the ice on the lakes begin to break up. The pine needles stop appearing in his bed as he sleeps.

Marco isn’t worried, though. He spreads the last of the needles across his window sill and presses the witch hazel blossoms between the pages of books to preserve them. He spares a moment to gaze up at the high up peaks of the mountain as he trudges out to the chicken coop, air still chilly enough to cloud his breath in the morning air. That high up, the snow on those distant peaks never completely melts.

With cold-clumsy fingers, he scatters feed across the ground that will soon be completely thawed. The chickens cluck enthusiastically as they begin to pick at the circle of feed around his feet.

Marco isn’t worried about spring’s arrival. That’s the nature of these things after all. Winter will be visiting the village once again before he knows it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated!  
You can also come say hi on [tumblr](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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